Post Scriptum
by ICanSeeYourFace
Summary: Sequel to "Dear Rory". Rory left Star Hollow in the middle of the night to go to Philadelphia, where she hopes to find Jess and ask him about the Christmas Card.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Here it is, the sequel to "Dear Rory". It would have been possible to continue it within the Letters-story, but as this will not have the same "format" I thought it was best to make it a sequel instead. If you have any wishes about what you'd like to see in this story, then mention it in your reviews or PM me, and I'll take it under consideration. So, enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characthers associated with Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I have no intention of making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it...).

* * *

_Chapter 1: The Christmas Card Affair_

Philadelphia was quiet. When Rory parked outside Truncheon Books it was only four thirty in the morning, and the sun wasn't even up yet. She was tired, she had driven all night, only stopping for petrol and coffee. After Bridgeport she turned down the thermostat in her car to keep her from feeling so drowsy (despite the three coffees she had already gulped down), and to keep the drowsiness even more off hand she had taken to making a pro-con list about her impromptu trip that kept her busy until she hit the outskirts of New York (15 pros, and 16 cons, one points difference wasn't enough to turn back home). The closer she came to Philadelphia the more nervous she got. Every time she stopped for coffee and an occasional stale bagel, she took out the Christmas card and looked at the four simple lines:

_Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  
__My four previous attempts to write you a letter boiled down to this.  
__I'm sorry, for this and everything else. _

_Jess._

She let her fingers follow his words, feeling where he had pressed the pen a bit harder against the card. Everytime, she was gripped by the feeling that she was completely out of her mind, going to Philadelphia because of one silly Christmas card. To think that 29 words had made her leave in the middle of the night, it was not like her. But then again, it hadn't been like her to steal a yacht, or going to Philadelphia the last time either. _"No,"_ Rory thought. _"Things were different then, I'm not going because of Logan. I'm going because…"_ But she couldn't put her finger on why she had left home in the middle of the night. For the first time in god knows how long, she was at loss of words. It made her frustrated, and all the more determined to get to Philadelphia so she could get the whole thing over with.

Drowsiness fell over her the minute she let the car stop. She needed a coffee fix, but everything nearby was closed, and she had a good parking space, and she needed to get out and wake Jess and ask him about the card. She hesitantly looked at her watch. Four thirty-five. The chanses of Jess being awake now was slim to none, and she had no idea how to get in. She knew that him and two others lived upstairs from the bookstore, and that they presumably used the door to the bookstore to get in and out. She had no idea what window was his, or if he even had a room with windows facing the street. Rory didn't need to make a pro-con list to know that it was futile to try and wake Jess up at this ungodly hour. She crawled over to the back seat, took off her coat and lied down, using the coat as a blanket. She could afford a couple of hours worth of sleep. She set the alarm clock on her phone for nine thirty, there would be plenty of time to get to the bottom of the Christmas card- business. She would have time to see Jess. At that moment, the memory of the kiss at Truncheon came back. It was the last thing she remembered before floating off to dreamland.

* * *

Above the bookstore, Jess was tossing and turning uneasily in his bed. He hadn't been able to sleep more than an hour or so at a time. He had heard how Philadelphia had fallen silent outside his window, the darkness of night had crept closer and closer to his bed, and it had become harder and harder to see the outline of his room. He reckoned it must be morning now, a car had clearly drove past or even parked outside the building. He turned over, reached out into the darkness until he found his alarm clock. Four thirtynine. In a couple of hours he'd leave his warm sanctuary to go out and buy coffee from the coffeeshop around the corner and then he'd spend the rest of his day working in the bookstore, as it was the only place where Matt and Chris didn't ambush him as much. He could concentrate on more important matters, like why the hell he sent that stupid card.

He had been restless ever since he had finally made himself mail it. It was so stupid, first of all it was a Christmas card! He was about as festive as Luke, and he wasn't sure if Luke had ever sent a Christmas card to anyone. Second, what he wrote on the card didn't at all come out like he had wanted to, but Jess figured that if he wanted something he could actually send to Rory, he had to cut all the crap and just stay neutral. The holiday greeting was easy. Scribbling down the two following lines weren't that hard either. Signing the damn thing was perhaps the easiest part of it all. Mailing it hadn't been a problem until he realized that he had actually crossed the line and sent it. By then it was too late to do anything, he couldn't reach into the mailbox and dig until he found it (he would most likely get stuck with his arm in the stupid box and look like an idiot), and waiting around for the mailman to empty the box was out of the question.

Jess stared out into the darkness of his room. It was still too dark to see anything, but he knew what he was looking at. He had three bookshelves in his room. In the middle one, second shelf, hidden between the pages of Hemingway's _The sun also rises_ (a pocket version he had bought for Rory, meant for her 19th birthday), were the three last letters he had tried to send her. He had wanted to throw them away, but somehow he hadn't been able to. Now, it seemed, when he had succeeded in sending her something, they were just mocking him. He'd throw them away later today. They weren't any good anymore.

Once again, he turned around in his bed, pulling his blanket over him. He hadn't slept this uneasy in years. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and went back to his uneasy sleep. His alarm would go off in three hours or so, and he had a feeling he'd need all the sleep he could get.

* * *

**A/N:** I've had a shitty day at school, so cheer me up with a review, please?


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Chapter 2! For those who like Chris and Matt (especially Matt): I think this chapter will leave you very satisfied. Please review, and keep the suggestions coming, both for this story and the proposed sequel to my first fic "I think I may have loved you"! Also, thanks for the reviews of chapter 1, it cheered me up, so job well done. :)

**Disclaimer:** I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characthers associated with Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I have no intention of making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it...).

* * *

_2. Cold, puny and in extreme need of heat_

_**Beep! Beep! Beep!**_

The piercing sound of the alarm reached Jess' ears, even though he had taken to hiding his head under the pillow. He thought to himself that he must've forgotten to close a window or something, because when he reached out to give the alarm clock the usual slam it was freezing in the room. He peeked out from under his pillow and blanket, but both of his windows were closed. Jess sat up, wrapping the blanket around his body, slowly putting his feet on the floor. Bad move. The floorboards were just as cold as the air, and then he understood. The heater had broken again, which meant that the entire apartment (and quite possibly the bookstore, too) was just as cold as his room.

"Great…" he muttered, as he rose from bed to get dressed.

From a chair opposite his bed he took a pair of jeans, slid them on and went over to his wardrobe, where he took out a pair of clean socks, a plain white t-shirt and his warmest sweater.

When Jess came out of his room fully dressed, he saw that Chris and Matt were up and about. Both of them looked like a couple of botched toys, they had their winter coats on, with at least two or three scarves, and Jess noticed their feet seemed abnormally big, which meant they had probably put on at least four or five pairs of socks. Matt was in the kitchen, sounding annoyed, with his phone plastered to his face.

"Dude, why aren't you freezing your ass off?" Chris asked him, teeth chattering.

"I think it has something to do with the fact that I don't sleep with only a duvet cover." Jess answered.

Just then, Matt came out of the kitchen, angrily speaking to whoever was on the phone.

"Mister… Fine, Lance! I don't think you understand. We have no heat. It's cold, penguin-cold! We're not gonna sit here and watch icicles form just because you seem to have a problem moving your butt! I have an attitude? I'll sue you for misguiding advertisement!"

Both Jess and Chris could hear how 'Lance' hung up on Matt.

"That ass hung up on me!" Matt exclaimed. "I'm definitely suing! What's the freaking meaning of having a 24 hour service if they have a problem with getting their heads out of their asses at 8 in the morning?"

"Makes you think 'what the hell are the Eskimo's thinking', don't it?" Chris joked.

Jess smiled, and felt something sting in his heart. That was something Rory, even Lorelai, could have said.

"Okey, guys, I'm going out for coffee," he said, moving towards the door and put on his winter coat. "I take it I'm coming home with three coffees today."

"Make sure they're hot! And I'm not talking about the girls making the soffee!" Matt yelled at him as Jess closed the door and descended the stairs.

Jess shook his head. The bookstore was just as cold as the apartment, they definitely needed to something about that, or they'd have problems keeping customers for the day.

Outside, it was still dark. The sun wouldn't be up in another hour or so. The street was more or less dead, it seemed like people rather spent their morning inside, than roaming the streets in the cold. Opposite the bookstore was a car parked, a light blue Toyota if Jess wasn't mistaken. The car's windows were all fogged up, and for a second, the car looked very familiar to Jess. Rory had a Toyota, same color. He had seen it outside her grandparents' house when he came to visit her years back. But Rory wasn't in Philadelphia. He didn't even know where she was. He snapped out of his thoughts, telling himself that lots of people probably had light blue Toyota Priuses.

He hurried away, running the last few yards to the coffee shop. The warmth of the interior hit him like a wall, and Jess felt like he wanted to stay all day in the coffee shop.

"Well, aren't you early, book boy?"

"Cammie."

Cammie usually had the early morning shift, so Jess wasn't all that surprised to hear her voice. She was a pretty girl, with a fondness for changing haircolour at least every other month. Last week, it had been silvery blond, but now she sported a bright reddish-purple color that clashed with her bright green eyes. Matt and Chris had both tried to make a pass at her, and it was with huge disappointment that they found out "she played for the girls' team". Jess had never really been attracted to her. Sure, she was fun and pretty in her own way, but he hadn't really found anyone to really like since… Well, since Rory. He had tried having girlfriends, but it always ended after a few weeks (if the girls were lucky), because none of them were Rory. As for Cammie, she was the girl with the coffee. They had sort of a Luke-Lorelai relationship in that sense, without the quirky feelings.

"I'll take three today, and make sure it's hot." Jess continued, feeling the warmth return to his face.

"Don't tell me you pulled an allnighter again, Mariano." she said in a mock reprimanding tone.

"Try waking up with no heat and two cranky wimps for room mates."

"Three coffees coming right up."

Five minutes later, he was on his way back home with three steaming hot coffees to go. When he turned in on Locust Street he could see the Toyota was still there, and once again, it caught his attention. His thoughts kept on wandering to Rory. What if that really was her car? What if she was here in Philly, again? He crossed the street to take a better look at the car. His heart almost stopped dead when he saw the licence plate. Connecticut. It could be her. He circled the car, stopping at the leftside passenger door. The window was fogged up from the inside, but Jess could still manage to make out the outlines of someone in the backseat.

"No, she wouldn't…" he mumbled to himself, before knocking on the window.

* * *

Rory was dreaming. She was trapped in a padded room with Michael Corleone and one of the girls from _Hardbodies_. They were having tea and from somewhere, the music she had picked out for the Donna Reed night she had arranged for Dean, was playing. Her teacup kept shifting in colour, and one second it was lime green and contained tea, and the next it was a violent shade of purple and contained coffee. Michael was tapping at his pink tea cup with a stiletto knife, as if to call attention to himself_. "God, is he tapping long… I hope he smashes his cup, it's so not his colour…"_ Rory thought. But when the taps turned to dull thuds, she snapped out of her dream.

At first, she didn't know where she was. Then it all came back to her. She had left in the middle of the night, she was in Philadelphia, she had slept in her car. She felt extremly stiff, and her neck was hurting from having slept in a funky position. The thumping came from the window, someone was out there. _"Oh God, what if it's the police. Can you get arrested for sleeping in a car?"_ she thought, while heaving herself up to open the window. Unfortunately, the window was stuck, so she had to open the door.

"Jess?" she asked stupidly, when she saw who was standing outside.

"I thought I had copyrighted the whole 'sleeping in car when it's freezing outside'-thing."

"I didn't exactly have any choice."

"How long have you been here?" he asked. "Are you cold? You look like you're moments away from hitting the icicle-stage."

Rory hastily glimpsed towards the rearview mirror. He was right. She was pale, and her lips were getting blueish. That's when she fully understood what she had done.

"Oh my God, mom's gonna kill me. Mom! Did I leave a note? She must be freaking out right now! I have to call her!"

"How early did you leave Stars Hollow? And as for Lorelai, I doubt she's awake yet. It's eight fifteen on a Sunday morning."

"I left just after midnight."

"To drive to Philadelphia?"

She didn't answer. He would still figure it out. The sudden exposure to the cold made her shudder.

"Come on, you can't sit there all day. Though I don't know if the apartment's much better at the moment. Heating failed some time between five and eight this morning, so it's freezing cold in there…."

She gave him a grateful smile and got out of the car, taking her purse, locking the car and then followed Jess. She could smell the sweet scent of the coffee he was carrying. When they entered Truncheon she hardly recognized the place. It was a chaos of bookshelves, paper and stuff she could only assume were works of art. The bar was gone, but the feeling of what had happened there was still lingering over the place.

Jess was right, it was cold, hardly warmer than in her car. She followed him up the stairs, and already outside the door, she could hear someone arguing loudly.

"That's Matt. I think he's on round two with a repairman named Lance." Jess replied when he saw her puzzled look.

"Oh…" she said. "Matt was…"

"The one that wanted us to rename a local bar 'Cedar Bar Redux'. Chris and I are trying our best to keep his mind off it."

He swung open the door and let her enter first. Sure enough, Matt, still clad in thick layers of warm clothes, red in the face, was pacing the floor, nagging with someone over the phone.

"Lance, for Pete's sake! It's warmer in my car, man! You must think I'm stupid, why the hell would I live in my car?" he rambled on, giving Jess and herself a greeting look, mouthing 'Lance' to them. "No, Lance, I'm still here. Hey, I heard that. Lance, buddy, you have a heart right, or has that turned to ice by now? Hey, I've got a girl here. Yes, girl. Female, woman, the opposite sex, whatever makes you react. Yes, she is pretty! Hey, focus man! Said female has spent the night here, and she looks like she's seconds away from hypothermia. Do you really want to have that on your conscience? Lance… Lance, Lance, Lance, a regular knight in icy armor. Thank you!"

Matt ended the call, and put the phone down.

"Idiot repairman will be here in ten minutes. You, missy, have spent the night here and you must look cold, puny and in extreme need of heat." Matt told her and then turned to Jess. "Oh, coffee!"

"Yeah, that's Matt for you, he doesn't really have a firm grasp on reality this time of day." Jess told her, while handing a cup of coffee to Matt.

"Did I hear coffee?" came Chris' voice from the bathroom. "Thank God, I need hot liquid. I've been trying to wake my feet up with hot water, but nothing beats coffee. To drink, not to soak feet in."

Chris came out of the bathroom, barefeet and looking wildly at the cups of coffee Jess was holding.

"Rory, this is Chris, the saner of the two, at least I've had that impression until now. Chris, whenever you feel you can use some of your mental capability to something else but coffee, this is Rory."

Chris just nodded, already gulping down coffee.

The upbeat greeting from the two guys had made Rory forget all about worrying. Not counting in how cold it was, she thought she could actually live like this, or at least close to this.

"Rory?"

Jess disrupted her thoughts about living so temptingly close to literature.

"Yeah?"

"Coffee?"

"It's yours, you should have it." she protested, even though she was in dire need of caffeine. "I need to look cold and puny, right?"

"Oh, don't listen to Matt, he's a bit over the top."

"I think he takes his heat very seriously." Rory said and nodded towards Matt, who was waddling around the room, trying to stay warm.

"Come on, we'll share. You'll still look like a popcicle after half a cup of coffee, if you ask me."

He handed her the coffee, and she couldn't resist the rich aroma anymore. She took a sip of the hot liquid, feeling how it filled her with an envigorating, tingly feeling.

"Hey! Do not give that woman coffee! I want her cold and puny, you hear!" Matt commanded.

"And I who thought I had escaped the medical experiment of Stars Hollow…" Jess muttered. "Matt would fit right in with Taylor, Miss Patty and Bootsy."

"Watch it, Mariano, or I'll make myself look very warm and cosy." she mock-threatened him.

He looked curiosly at her. She felt relieved she was so cold that her blushing was completely internal. She had never been able to withstand his gaze for long. His eyes were entrancing.

"Come on, I'll get you a sweater, that way you will even look more puny." he smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for your wonderful reviews, they're life savers! The idea box is still very empty, so I'm just writing this as it comes to me. Still, feel free to drop a suggestion if you have any (people, moments, that sort of stuff). So, chapter 3 is here, Luke and Lorelai will make an appearance. I think very highly of you, meaning I think you can distinguish between thoughts and voices in the background, so to say. And, my final words of this rather long note: The review button keeps me happy.

**Disclaimer:** I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characters associated with Gilmore Girls. I do not make any money off of this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it…).

* * *

_3. Pop Tart notes__?_

"_He still smells the same. Minus the cigarettes."_ Rory thought, discreetly breathing in the scent of the deep blue sweater Jess handed her.

"It goes with your eyes and your lips." he joked when she had pulled it over her head.

"You know, this whole situation sort of reminds me of that time when our window at home had broken. It was freezing in the house, and mom tried to fix it with plastic wrap and Barbie band aids. She said something about not knowing what the Eskimo's were thinking."

For a split second she was sure Jess twitched, but he came to quickly.

"I know, I was in the Hollow. I sort of snapped at Luke and he ended up having his hand jammed full of Barbie band aids because he tried to fix the window after having a couple of beers." he answered, feeling a bit ashamed of himself.

"Oh, yeah. It was at the Firelight Festival. We didn't really talk much."

"No. I ended up chasing you through the square and then blurted out that I loved you and skipped town. Not my smartest move to date."

Rory remembered it all too well. He had left her feeling so… empty. She had almost ran away from him, and he had had something important to say, and he looked so full of pain. She had instantly regretted yelling at him, and she would've run after him, but something kept her standing there, her feet frozen to the ground.

* * *

"Dude! Why did you give her a sweater?" Matt suddenly bellowed behind them. "Lance will not fix our heating if she doesn't look cold, and then we'll be stuck with a freezing apartment and bookstore.

"Take a chillpill and back off! She slept the entire night in her car, it's gonna take more than one of my sweaters to warm her up." Jess barked. "She'll look puny enough or whatever for Lance to fix the heat so you can go back to your regular level of insane."

"You're delightful." Matt replied accusingly, and wobbled off into his own room.

"Sorry about that, he can be a bit…" Jess began excusingly.

"I don't think over the top can quite cover it, but I get what you're meaning." she smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

Jess could feel a sting in his heart. She looked so little and weak. Her lips were still an uncomfortable shade of blueish purple, and he had to fight the urge to take her in his arms and hug her. Why was she here? She hardly drove all the way from Stars Hollow to Philly just because she had a feeling three guys might need to use her to get the heat back in their apartment. He was about to ask when a cell phone started ringing violently.

"Oh, that's mine." she said, and fished up her cell from her purse. "Oh… It's mom."

She looked excusingly at him, and answered the phone.

"Mom?"

"Honey, babe, loinfruit, I know you like to sneak out of the house when you wake up at the most ungodly hours, but were in Lucifer's reach are you? Mommy has been a basket case extraordinaire all day! Tell her Luke!"

Rory could hear Luke grunt something in the background that sounded like "_Don't involve me in this madness, I bet she's okey."_

"Wow, Mr. Optimistic here definitely needs to work on his happy face." Lorelai commented. "Anyway kiddo, where the heck are you? I woke up and saw that your room was empty."

"Mom, I'm…"

"So, naturally, I thought you had gone to Luke's and ignored the fact that you could've, no should've left me, the reason for your very existence, a note." her mother continued. "But when I come to Luke's he says he hasn't seen you all morning, and that's when I hit manic-mode. I ran like a crazy person around town, no one had seen you, so I returned home to see if you'd left a note or something. Nothing! I looked everywhere, I even looked in the Pop Tart-box for Pop Tart notes!"

"Pop Tart notes? I didn't know you could do those. I can add those to the to-do-lists I keep hidden among the coffee bags and my Mallomars-mental notes" Rory said contemplatively.

"But seriously mom, in what universe would I leave a note in the Pop Tart box?" she then continued.

"Duh, the one where your mother eats a Pop Tart every morning before going to Luke's." Lorelai answered.

"_You really eat that stuff every morning?"_ Luke asked, sounding appalled.

"Mom, I left you a note, it's on the kitchen table, didn't you see it?"

"Kitchen table? Oh, look at that! 'Mom had to go away. Will be home for Friday night dinner. Rory'. Wow, could you be anymore vague?"

"Hey, are you home?" Rory asked surprised

"Yes, and I fail to see how that should evoke such a surprised tone."

"And Luke is with you?"

"In the flesh, or rather in the flannel shirt, but you get the picture."

"I have missed something here, and I'm not sure I want to know what you're using him for this time."

"Dirty!" Lorelai exclaimed. "Still, you're avoiding the question. Where are you?"

"I'm not avoiding anything, you're the one not letting your only daughter speak."

"So, speak."

Rory hesitated a second, before speaking.

"I'm… I'm in Philadelphia."

"Philadelphia? As in Rocky, cheesesteaks and someone that begins with a 'J' and ends with and 'ess'?"

"_Jess?"_

Luke again, and he sounded utterly surprised this time.

"_Has she gone to visit Jess__, all alone?"_

"I don't know, the mystery is unfolding as we speak." Lorelai answered him.

"Yes, I'm in that Philadelphia, although I don't know of any other so…" Rory interrupted. "And yes, I'm… I'm with Jess."

"Wow… Didn't see that coming. But… why, honey?"

Rory looked nervously at Jess, who was standing close by, trying not to look at her too much.

"I… I really can't talk now mom. I'll tell you later, and I promise I will be home for Friday night dinner."

"You better be, missy, remember, you are my buffer."

"I love you mom. Be nice to Luke."

"Why be nice when you can…"

"Thank you, mom. I'll see you in a day or so."

"Be safe, honey."

Rory ended the call and put away her phone.

"What was that about Pop Tart notes and Luke?" Jess asked with a sly smile.

"Well, I left mom a note on the kitchen table, but she missed that, and so she looked everywhere for my note, going so far as running around Stars Hollow and then return back to the Crap Shack and look for my note in the Pop Tart box. Apparently she had Luke over, I have no idea why, and I'm not entirely sure if I want to know.

They both laughed about it, toning out into an awkward silence. She felt so weird being there, in his room, with his sweater on. She tried to tell herself that she had this weird feeling because she was cold and deprived of coffee, but something in the back of her mind told her that there was more to this strange feeling inside her.

* * *

"So, you're staying for a couple of days?" Jess then asked.

"Yeah, is that okey? I must've lost my head, I should've asked first."

"No, no, it's okey…"

"You know I can totally sleep in my car. Been there, done that. Literally."

"No, no, you can stay. I need someone to level out the craziness here."

She gave him a smile, and he couldn't help but look at her. She was just the same, the beautiful, intelligent girl that stole his heart when he was 17. It hurt him to think that he had crushed her so many times.

"So… You're doing okey? You know, apart from being cold?"

"Yeah." she answered. "I'm fine. I followed the Obama campaign trail until November, then I was reassigned to various places, living out of a suitcase. I came home from Washington yesterday."

"I bet Logan misses you."

It hurt Jess to say those words, but he had to.

"I really…" she began.

"Idiot repairman incoming!"

Matt had been obivously been perched over the one window in his room that conveniently faced the street, and now he came out of the room, yelling like his life depended on it.

"You! Missy! Give me your best pity me-look!"

Rory looked hopelessly at Jess before giving Matt her patented 'baby blues puppy dog stare' that so often had worked in her favour.

"God, you're great. You could ask me to chew my arm off with that look and I wouldn't even stop to think why." Matt said and looked immensely satisfied.

"Yes, because asking people to chew their limbs off is my favourite past time after animal rituals and drive by's with my Stars Hollow homies." Rory whispered to Jess.

Jess sniggered. He had missed her wild, crazy sense of humour. Perhaps her showing up here all of a sudden wasn't such a weird thing at all?

"Jess?" she then said, with a serious tone of voice. "We need to talk. Not now, but… We just need to talk."

As if on cue, Jess' own cellphone began to ring.

* * *

**A/N:** And the question we all want to know the answer to... Who's calling Jess? Also, someone wished for more Cammie-appearances, I'll try and work her into chapter 4!


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Hey again! It seems we need to clear some things out. For one: Jess does not, I repeat not, have a steady girlfriend. Second: Cammie is the girl working the coffee shop (as in a shop that actually sells coffee…) Jess frequents. There has never been anything going on between Cammie or Jess (Jess can't keep a relationship because he still has feelings for Rory, and Cammie's gay). Btw, anyone else but me annoyed at not knowing Jess' birthday (or middle name for that matter...)? Thanks again for reviews, keep them coming, and enjoy chapter 4! (Wow, do I suck at making short A/N:s?)

**Disclaimer:** I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characters associated with Gilmore Girls. I do not make any money off of this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it…).

* * *

_4. Romeo and Juliet extraordinaire_

Jess excused himself, and went into his room to answer the phone.

"Hello?"

"You will not break her heart."

"Wow, hello to you to Luke, how's the diner going? Me? No, I'm fine."

"Don't be a wiseass Jess. You will not let her down, you will not break her heart, you will…"

"Luke!" Jess interrupted. "How old am I?"

Luke stopped his rant and was quiet for a few seconds. "_God, does he really have to count?"_ Jess thought.

"You turned 23 a couple of months ago." Luke finally answered.

"Luke, I'm not a messed up 17-year-old kid anymore."

"Right, sorry. Old habit, you know." Luke apologized sheepishly. "But you will not…"

"No, I will not break her heart, Luke, I got the memo."

"_I think it's more likely she's going to break mine…"_ he silently added to himself.

"What is she doing there?"

"Beats me."

"She hasn't said anything?"

"Let's just say that oppotunity hasn't favoured that conversation yet."

"Fine, you call me or Lorelai as soon as you know." Luke demanded.

"Lorelai?" Jess asked curiously. "How did Lorelai enter this conversation?"

"I… We…"

"You two are an item again?" Jess teased.

Luke was silent. Jess guessed Luke thought silence was the best answer in this situation, but he saw right through it.

"I take that as an affirmative silence."

"You take no such thing! We're… sort of dating, I don't know. She's dragging me over to see some movie tonight, some boxing movie, she thought I'd maybe like it."

"What, like Cinderella Man or Rocky?"

"I don't know, might have been Rocky." Luke answered

"Which one?"

"What, are there more than one?"

"Luke, there are six Rocky-movies to date! I am officially ashamed of being related to you."

"Six, really?" Luke muttered surprised, oblivious to the last part of Jess' outburst. "Well, you call me as soon as you know anything."

"Sure… Uncle Luke."

"Wiseass…" Luke muttered before ending the call.

* * *

When Jess returned to the livingroom, Lance had entered, and Matt was wildly discussing something with him, tugging at Rory's arm, while she gave Lance the puppy dog look. It was obviously working, Lance looked like any man who had been exposed to the near-fatal sight of the young Gilmore's baby blues.

"Fine! I'll fix it and you'll get a discount." Lance told Matt, and then turned to Rory. "Wouldn't want you to catch something, miss."

Jess smiled, and came up behind Rory as Lance went out the door to fix the heater.

"Job well done, Gilmore." he whispered.

"No thanks to you, Mariano." she answered with a mock sarcastic tone.

"Wow, sass much lately?"

"Hey, I'm cold, caffeine deprived and exploited. How about you give me a reason for not telling Lance that I slept in my car, thus effectively making your life with Matt and Chris a pain in your butt?"

"Coffee?" Jess suggested, knowing it would strike a chord.

Rory smiled at him, giving him a light punch in the chest.

"You know me too well."

"Get your coat and purse, I know a place."

* * *

Five minutes later they were entering the coffee shop around the corner, and Jess saw that Cammie was still on her shift. She turned around when she heard the door slam shut and greeted them.

"Mariano, back again so soon?" she asked, and then turned to look at Rory. "Who's your friend?"

She looked at Rory, and gave her a small smile.

"Cammie…" Jess warned her.

"But…" Cammie tried.

"No." Jess said determinedly.

An intense staring competition ensued between Jess and Cammie, and Rory had no idea why. Finally, Cammie caved.

"Have it your way then." she muttered mockingly. "Coffee as usual?"

"Yeah, one supercoffee for her and a regular for me."

As Cammie started making and pouring the coffee, Rory turned to Jess.

"I think she has a thing for you." Rory whispered to Jess.

"Actually," Jess answered, also in a whisper. "Chances favour her having a thing for you."

Rory's mind was blank for a few second, before it hit her. She could feel her cheeks heating, which meant her body temperature had returned to the level where people could see her blush.

"Oh… I mean… Oh." was all she could say.

"That's better than Matt and Chris. They really didn't take it well."

"And you? What about you?"

"Cammie's just the girl with the coffee. I think she's to me what Luke's to your mom, without the weird feelings. And no, I never thought I'd compare anyone to Luke, or myself to your mom."

"Well, I don't think Luke will be sporting purple-red hair anytime soon, or play for the 'boy's only team'."

"Oh my God, very, very bad picture!" Jess groaned.

"Your fault for bringing Luke into it at all." Rory laughed.

"There you go," Cammie said and put the two cups of coffee on the counter. "One supercaffeinated for you girl, and that's decaf for you mister."

"Hey, I didn't ask for decaf."

"Seriously, that caffeine jolt I sold you earlier today was enough to keep you awake all day, don't think I'm frying anymore of your brain cells."

"You're right, she's kind of like Luke." Rory commented, sounding very amused.

"Luke?" Cammie asked. "I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but I claimed no liability to any coffeerelated accidents or injuries after his second day of six supercoffees."

Jess took Rory's arm and they went over to sit by one of the tables next to the windows.

"She's exaggerating, really. Plus I think she's a bit vindictive after I gave her the hands off."

"Still, six coffees?" Rory asked teasingly. "Are you seriously trying to become me or my mom?"

"Yeah, because that would make me popular enough to return to the Hollow without getting flagellated at my arrival."

"You'd still have Taylor to deal with. And Kirk would be secretly infatuated with you."

"You're enjoying this far too much."

* * *

They sat in silence, slowly drinking their coffee. Jess was apparently not happy about his decaf coffee, and kept shooting Cammie dark looks. Rory felt nervous. She had told him they needed to talk, and now was as good a time as any, but she had no idea what to say. Starting with 'By the way, what's with the awkward, out-of-the-blue, so-not-you Christmas card?' didn't really seem like the winning question.

"You said we needed to talk."

_Shoot_. There it was, he had asked her the question she wanted answer to but didn't know how to ask. She couldn't really turn down his question, after all, she was the one who had said they needed to talk. She reached down into her purse, and found the Christmas card in one of the pockets. Putting it on the table, she slowly pushed it over towards him. She could tell he wasn't all that surprised. Had he suspected it? Again, she was overwhelmed by the feeling of totaly stupidity. Leaving Star Hollow in the middle of the night for a piece of paper, four lines of twenty-nine words and a weird feeling inside her.

"I see you got it." Jess finally said. "I didn't know it called for a visit, you do this for all the people that send you cards?"

She wanted to smile, she really did, but she had to stay serious, or he would joke this away and sweep her off to God knows where.

"Why did you send it? We haven't talked since the Truncheon open house."

"And it's so weird for me to wish you a happy holiday? Am I not the Christmasy 'good will toward men' type of guy?" he tried.

He knew he wasn't very successful at trying to divert her thoughts from the Christmas card. Frankly, he was failing miserably. He was cornered, unable to find a loophole that would lead away from that dratted card.

"Not really." she answered. "Luke doesn't even send us Christmas cards, so forgive me for being surprised when his nephew, my ex, sends me a one out of the blue."

Ex. The two-letter word struck him harder than he expected. He was the ex, not a friend, nothing that could be construed as better than ex.

"Hey, no need to get defensive here. I just wanted to… to…"

"To what, Jess? Come on, you know you can talk to me. And please, don't go monosyllabic on me now."

"I wanted to write to you, okey? I tried writing you something, anything, in four other letters and failed, so the Christmas card seemed like a simple solution to put me out of my writing-misery." Jess explained, feeling how he began to revert back to his 17-year-old hoodlum state.

"Did you temporarily lose your ability to operate a cell phone?"

"Because a phone call would have been so much more low key than a Christmas card?"

The comment was sarcastic, yep, he was back to being 17 once again. She always had that effect on him, whatever they were doing, it ended with him feeling 17 again and making an ass out of himself.

"Yes!" Rory hissed, trying not to raise her voice. "My mom saw that Christmas card, and you should've seen the look she gave me. It was the quintessential moment of awkwardness."

None of them said anything for what seemed like minutes. Jess felt even more stupid for sending the card now. He had totally forgot the part where Lorelai would sort through the mail. Of course she would have seen his card and even more of course, she would have read it. Rory, on the other hand, felt silly for making this into such a big deal. She just wanted to know why he had sent her the card, nothing more, nothing less.

"You said you tried writing me before this?" she asked quietly.

"Four letters." he answered shortly. "I didn't send any of them."

"I could deduce that much."

"I threw them away."

He lied to her. He didn't feel good about lying to her, but there was no need for her to know that three of those supposedly thrown away letters were hidden in a Hemingway-book in his room.

"Okey…"

* * *

They drank the rest of their coffee under silence. Cammie watched them from behind the counter, and she began to understand why Jess had told her to back off. She was the one, the one he never talked about, the mysterious girl from his past that he only spoke of as his only regret. She knew he had strong feelings about her still, even if he denied it in any way he could. But the more Cammie watched the both of them, the more she began to suspect that this mystery girl wasn't all cleared of local mystery man and possible former (and possibly present) heartthrob Jess Mariano. Even she could feel the awkward silence between them, and they looked strained and uncomfortable when they left the coffee shop.

"Romeo and Juliet, minus the families, plus caffeinated awkwardness, repressed feelings and..." she mumbled to herself, and looked up when the door opened and closed, indicating a new customer had entered.

She swiftly looked up, and when she saw what it was, she silently added:

"_Oh, this could be interesting..."_


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Wow, how's that for updating fast even though I'm sick? I've skipped a lot of classes (meaning I've only gone to one so far this week, sadly one that I might have been able to be absent from, but couldn't since I don't understand anything unless I'm there), and so I've been sitting at home, writing whatever came to mind. Things are tightening up a bit here, I still don't have a clear idea of where this is going, but I'm following tips and impromptu inspiration. You, wonderful reader, can affect this story, just drop a review telling me what you think of the story, if anything is missing and so on… As usual, thanks so much for reviews on previous chapter(s).

**Disclaimer:** I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characthers associated with Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I have no intention of making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it...).

* * *

_5. Not really according to plans._

They walked back to Truncheon in silence. Rory felt drained of all power, even though the coffee Cammie had made for her had been strong and just a few notches below Luke's, but she was still exhausted. She tried repressing a yawn, but Jess noticed.

"You tired?" he asked her, the first thing he had said since at the coffee shop.

"No." she answered, not wanting his pity.

"Rory."

"No, I'm fine."

"Again, Rory. You drove all night to get here, no Orbison-pun intended, you slept in your car, a freezing one at that. You still want me to believe you're fine?"

"I'm caffeinated and good to go." she said irritably.

Seconds after she yawned widely.

"Yeah, how is that going for you?" Jess smirked.

"Okey, fine, I'm exhausted, if it wasn't so cold I'd drop dead in the nearest heap of snow. I don't get it, coffee always make me wide awake, looking at how many allnighters I've pulled through thanks to coffee, it's practically failsafe. Why do I suddenly want to sue someone?" she rambled.

"Okey, caffeine jolt definitely kicking in, and here comes drowsiness for a second round, but who's going to win?" Jess mock-referated.

"Do I have to beg or can I just assume you'll offer me somewhere to sleep?"

Jess opened the door to Truncheon, feeling that it was great deal warmer there than when they left.

"Don't assume things, Rory, just because you can." he said.

Rory looked slightly taken aback by this, and Jess realized he had perhaps sounded a bit harsher than he had intended.

"Don't beg either." he continued in a softer tone. "You came here, and what kind of a host would I be if I didn't let you rest? Come on, you can have my room, I need to work anyway."

They walked up the stairs, and found Matt and Chris gleefully spread out on the sofa. Most of their winter clothes had disappeared, but they were still clad in thick sweaters and a considerable amount of socks.

"Okey, so are we going to work today or are you going to sit there looking like idiots?" Jess asked them.

There came a dreamy hum from both of them, and Rory could see Jess grew irritated, although he hid it pretty well.

"Come on." he told her instead, and they walked into his room.

She took her time looking around the room. She hadn't really looked at it when they were in here to get her a sweater, but now she just took everything in. An entire wall was dedicated to bookcases filled with books and a stack of magazines. Another wall was lined with three closets, and a third wall had two windows facing the street. Under these windows were his bed, a scrangly looking thing that wasn't made. As could be expected, she was drawn towards his wall of books.

"Aren't we hooked on phonics…" she smirked, mimicking his comment about her book collection at home.

"I remember that one." Jess said quietly. "My first day in Stars Hollow, when Lorelai invited Luke and me over to dinner."

Of all the first dates Jess had been on (and he considered that 'Welcome to Stars Hollow'-dinner his and Rory's first inofficial date), the dinner at the Gilmore girls' was one he would never forget. Not only had he been rude, but the night had been unforgettable in a way only a night in that whacky town could be. Lorelai's friend Sookie had ambushed him about his eating habits, Sookie's husband had tried to attack him with lemons, and Luke and Lorelai was shamelessly flirting up until he ruined the whole night by unsuccessfully stealing a beer and then indirectly cause a fight between Luke and Lorelai. Plus the fact that he skipped out with Rory's copy of _Howl_.

After Rory, he had been on a fair share of first dates, one only a couple of weeks before he sent off the Christmas card. As usual, he more or less bolted at the first sign of the girl actually liking him, because he knew how it would end, and he wanted to spare her. Or maybe he wanted to spare himself, he was tired of turning down one pretty and nice girl after the other. The last one, a girl called Jaima, had been promising. She was smart, cute, kind of like Rory, even though he knew no one could ever be her. Jaima had left town for a short visit to her grandparents the day before Jess made himself post the Christmas card, and she had told him that he could call her whenever he wanted to. He hadn't called her. After mailing the card, his mind went into overdrive, and he couldn't make himself call her. He was obsessed with the card he sent to Rory, and he felt guilty for that. Now, Rory was here, and god only knows where Jaima was. As Rory now stood in his room, mimicking something he had said when they first met, he wondered to himself if he had actually changed. Was he so much different from the struggling 17-year old he had been?

* * *

"Jess?"

"Wha'?"

"Did you hear me?"

He shook his head.

"You looked kind of lost." she smiled. "I just said I noticed _The Fountainhead_. Have you made it through it yet?"

"Actually I have." he answered truthfully.

"Really?And what's your verdict?"

"She's still a political nut, and I will never ever touch that book again."

They laughed, and Jess noticed Rory was getting dangerously close to the section of his middle shelf where the Hemingway book was.

"So, you wanna lay down and sleep for a bit? You still look exhausted." he tried.

"Okey… I'll just take a book, and read until I fall asleep. Shouldn't be too long." she said, and picked out a book.

Jess closed his eyes. _"Please, don't let it be the Hemingway, please don't let it be the Hemingway…"_

"_The Heroin Diaries_?"

He felt very relieved inside when he heard her most likely pick.

"Yeah, I got it a few months back.. It's about Nikki Sixx, you know, the bass player of Mötley Crue."

"I know, I heard about this. I was thinking of buying it for mom, she read _The Dirt_ a couple of years ago, and liked it.."

With that, her choice was settled, and she went over to the bed, laid down, pulled the blanket over her and began reading.

"Sleep tight, Rory." Jess said as he exited the room and closed the door.

When he came out, Matt and Chris were still on the sofa, half asleep. Jess shook his head. Those two, no one would believe that they were actually the founding forces of Truncheon.

"Guys, I forgot to tell you…" he began in an innocent tone. "Cammie's downstairs. She's converted back to straight, and she wants to see you."

That simple statement had the right effect on Matt and Chris. They shot up from the sofa, and stumbled out the door and down the stairs. None of them even bothered to take their keys. Jess laughed. _"It works every time…"_ he thought as he exited the apartment and locked and closed the door.

"Hilarious, man!" came Chris' irritated voice from downstairs.

"I'm a natural." Jess answered when he came down into the bookstore.

"I should really kick your butt, but the opportune moment never presents itself, because the buttkickee always manages to barricade himself in his room or sneak out." Matt grunted.

"Like I said, I'm a natural."

Jess grinned at him business partners, and went over behind the counter to get the inventory list. Contrary to Chris and Matt, Jess actually enjoyed inventory. It meant being alone, down in the basement, with the simple task of checking things on the list and comparing it to what they have in stock, and occasionally read a book down there if he finished early. As much as he loved working in the store, it had become harder with Matt and Chris ambushing him about the sequel. He hadn't been able to write anything sane since he sent off the card, and he had been lying through his teeth about it to Matt and Chris. They were expecting him to present them with a raw manuscript any day, and he had barely even got through the most important parts of his story.

* * *

Around noon, when he was done with inteventory, he told Matt and Chris he was taking a break, and went upstairs. Normally, he would go out to get take out, but today he stayed. He knew they had a bit of left over Chinese somewhere in the fridge, and he wanted to check in on Rory. Quietly, he opened the door to the apartment and tiptoed in and over to his door. It was silent in there, but she might well be reading. He slowly opened the door, and peeked in. Rory was sound asleep, _The Heroin Diaries_ lay on the floor with a bookmark in it, and Rory herself was curled up under the blankets. Jess couldn't stop looking at her. As much as things were over between them, right now he wished they weren't. Seeing her there, sound asleep, her hair spread out on his pillow, and her light breaths hardly making any noise, it made him miss what they had. The stings he had felt in his heart before, was nothing to the huge, lump that now formed in his stomach. He wanted to love her, he wanted her to love him. He closed his eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths, before shutting the door, and going into the kitchen to have lunch. He found the Chinese, but something was smelling from within the box, and he ended up throwing the entire box. Instead, he found some bread, salad, ham and cheese, and made two sandwiches. One of the perks of having to have slaved at the diner was that he was a fairly accomplished cook by now, and he was often the designated chef in the household.

Ten minutes later, he returned downstairs and relieved Matt from counter duty. The awkward discussion with Rory aside, this was shaping up to be a good day. He was thinking of suggesting a movienight to Rory and the guys when the day was over, he'd made them watch _Almost Famous_, and be extremely amused by Rory's facial expressions during Kate Hudson's suicide scenes. His plans was abruptly interrupted, not to say totally destroyed when someone greeted him with an energetic "Hi!" behind his back. He stiffened, recognizing the voice, and he slowly turned around.

"Jaima?" he said, not sure if he should be happy or worried.

"Jess! I was beginning to think you had skipped town. You haven't called, and I know I could have, but convieniently I got robbed when I was visiting the grandparents and I had my cell there, and I didn't have your number anywhere else, and well, I was quite sure you had gone until Cammie told me she had seen you this morning."

She even talked with a bubbly intensity that was so close to Rory. It stunned him for a couple of seconds, before he came to.

"Well… There's… been a lot going on." he said, trying to sound casual.

She smiled at him, why did she have to look so understanding?

"Well, come one here, it feels like forever since anyone hugged me." she chirped.

He moved, rather reluctantly, from behind the counter to give her a hug. He wanted it to be quick, he didn't feel much like talking to Jaima just now. Unfortunately, Jaima seemed to be very hugdeprived, and kept holding on to him for what felt like ages. _"I'm supposed to enjoy this, she's nice."_ Jess had to tell himself, but Rory kept popping up in his mind.

"Jess?"

Rory's voice came flying from somewhere. _"God, no, don't let this be…"_ Jess though, feeling how his stomach turned into a raisin, when he let go of Jaima and looked toward the stairs that led up to the apartment.

There was Rory, looking blankly at him. Even worse, she was holding something, something Jess recognized as the three letters he had hidden in The _Sun also rises_.

"Rory." he said, feeling how his face turned numb. "This is Jaima. She's a… a good friend. Jaima, this is Rory, she's a friend from… Connecticut."

Rory looked stern when she came down the last few steps to greet Jaima. She knew, Jess was certain of it. Rory was still wearing his sweater, and he could sense how it already smelled of her.

"I'm sorry, I have to go." Rory said, and Jess could hear the hurt tone that she tried to hide within her casual tone. "It was nice meeting you Jaima."

Not bothering to go up to grab her purse or coat, and not even looking at Jess, she quietly exited the bookstore, taking his discarded letters with her. Jess' mind was blank, save for one word that kept repeating itself over and over again:

"_Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit."_


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N**: I'm so flattered by all the positive response I've gotten for the previous chapter, and I hope you like this one. If anyone is wondering what the whole contents of the letters were, check out "Dear Rory", for which this is a sequel. As always, reviews keep me happy, and I think they make me get better.

**Disclaimer**: I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characthers associated with Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I have no intention of making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it...).

* * *

_6. The substitute Lorelai_

_She wasn't sleeping when he came in. She pretended to sleep, while clutching the letters tightly under the blanket. She was nervous, scared almost, that he'd come over and wake her and discover that she had discovered the letters. Somehow, Rory figured that the reason Jess had stuck those letters in a Hemingway-book was because no one, especially not her, would ever find them. But she had._

As good as _The Heroin Diaries_ was (she made a mental note to buy it for Lorelai before she left Philadelphia), she wanted something else. Something, anything that wasn't talking about drugs all through 400-ish pages. She got out of bed and started browsing through the titles in his bookshelves. He had all the books she had ever read or wanted to read. Plus Hemingway, which she wasn't sure she wanted to read. She saw _The Fountainhead_, and took it out. She browsed through it, wanting proof that he had actually read it. All through the book, there were margin notes, which was a sure sign that he had read it all through.

"He finished it…" she mumbled happily to herself, feeling a bit proud of him. "He really finished it."

That's when she decided on reading Hemingway, he had made it through a book he dreaded, she could do the same. She stepped back and noticed _The sun also rises_ in the middle bookcase. Taking it out, she went back to bed, browsing through it, noticing the huge amount of margin notes. This was obviously one of his favourites. That was also when she found them. Three neat letters with her name and Stars Hollow-address scribbled on them.

Carefully, she opened one of them. It was dated 14.11.2007, and she gathered that much that this was the third letter he had written. The second letter she opened was dated 27.10.2007, Jess' second letter. The third, his fourth, was dated 25.11.2007. No matter how many times she browsed through _The sun also rises_, she couldn't find the first letter. She thought that perhaps that was the only letter he had actually thrown away. Sorting the letters according to date, she began reading them. It was all there, everything that had been hidden between the lines of the Christmas card, this was what he had really wanted to say. His words spoke to her from the lined paper, and it made her smile, but the more she read, the sadder she got.

_I regret everything I did that made me lose you… You're so hard to make up for… I just care for you… I was disappointed like hell when you walked out… You led me on… I tried having relationships while I was gone… They weren't you… I can't get you out of my head… I'm sorry for everything I did…_

The world began to spin faster and faster around Rory as she read and re-read every letter, every passage, every signature. She barely heard the door to the apartment open, and she hurried to lie down and pretend to be asleep. His presence in the room was like a hot summer's day, and Rory got the feeling that she was slowly suffocating. When the door finally closed, she didn't dare to move, and so she lied completely still for an unknown amount of time, until Jess left the apartment. She took out the letters again, just watching them, his handwriting that would go from flowing to cramped, the way he signed them, his J's and R's. Should she tell him? Well, either that or he'd figure it out himself. Letters just don't open themselves. Like so many times before, she resorted to her faithful pro-con lists, and to her great annoyance, the pro's of telling Jess won. When she made another list of pro's and con's of telling him now versus not, the pro's came out winning again. She sighed. Taking the letters with her, she went out of the room, put her shoes on and decended the stairs. Just in time to see Jess and some girl hugging.

* * *

"Jess?" she heard herself say, feeling as if this wasn't really happening.

She could see him disentangle himself and stare at her, noticing the letters she was holding. He almost looked frightened. He introduced them, saying the girl, Jaima, was a good friend. Rory, however, instantly understood this girl was more than just a friend. She didn't look like a friend, he didn't act as if she was just a good friend. Hesitantly, still feeling dazed, she decended the last few steps and blithesomely greeted Jaima.

A rush of thougts galloped through her mind. Had he been with her when he wrote the letters? Had he been telling the truth, or was it all a bunch of pretty words to get her to feel sorry for him and spin off into some stupid spiral of blaming herself? Did this Jaima-girl know who she was? Nothing in her behaviour pointed to that, but she might be a good actress._ "Oh God, what if she's an actress?"_ Rory felt she could never compete with that, she was only a journalist, and actresses always got the good guys, not tomention the bad guys, and Jess had been both. She had been prepared to talk about the letters with Jess, she had been ready to confess to still feeling something, maybe even love, for him, but he had clearly moved on, and what good was it to give a full confession now?

Telling Jess she was sorry, Rory exited the Truncheon, no purse, no coat. She had no idea where to go, she couldn't take her car because her keys were upstairs in her purse. She just started to walk, feeling she needed to put as much space between her and Jess as was possible in this weather. The problem was, she had only been in Philadelphia once before, when Truncheon had its open house. She hadn't even been in Philly for the campaign trail, it wasn't scheduled until next year. Thus, she soon found herself at the coffeeshop where Cammie worked, and she could feel her hands shivering when she entered.

* * *

Cammie was nowhere to be found, instead, a mid-thirties man was standing behind the counter.

"Is Cammie here?" Rory asked, trying not to sound too strained.

"Cammie? You just missed her, went off her shift five minutes ago."

"_Great…"_ Rory thought. _"I'll have to improvise."_

"Well, the thing is, I'm in Philly just for the day, and Cammie and I were supposed to meet here, but she obviously forgot. I don't have her address, but…"

"Just go out, follow South 38th Street, she can't have gotten far." the man answered with a bored tone.

Rory darted out of the coffeeshop. It had almost been too easy. And sure enough, not two minutes later she caught a glimpse Cammie's shining purple-reddish hair.

"Cammie!" Rory shouted. "Hey, Cammie, wait!"

Cammie immediately turned around at the sound of her name being shouted, and needless to say, she looked very surprised to see Rory.

"Rory, right?" Cammie asked her.

"Yeah."

"Okey, may I ask why you've tracked me down in this godforsaken cold?" she asked, suddenly getting a suspicious look on her face. "Wait, this doesn't have anything… Oh no…"

"What?"

"Come on, we'll get you to my place, then we'll talk." Camme said, and gave Rory her gloves and knitted scarf.

Hurriedly, they walked the last few blocks to Cammies apartment, a cosy one-room apartment that was just as colourful as Cammie. Rory was immediately seated in a huge armchair while Cammie zoomed in and out of the little kitchen bringing her coffee and sandwiches. Finally, she seated herself on a bright green beanbag across from Rory, and looked at her.

* * *

"Rory, why are you here?"

She didn't know what to answer, or perhaps where she should start.

"Jess called just as I got off work and asked if I'd seen you. He said you ran away from Truncheon." Cammie informed her. "Have you?"

"I… I just… Letters… And he… And she was there! And I don't know, did he lie through three letters, and what was she doing there? I couldn't take it, he was supposed to… and I… I just left." Rory rambled, trying to hold her thoughts together, but failing miserably.

"And I'm not really following here."

"I found three letters Jess had written for me but never sent." Rory began, handing the letters to Cammie. "He more or less apologized for treating me so bad back when we were together…"

"So you are the mystery girl!" Cammie exclaimed triumphantly, while skimming through the letters.

"Mystery girl?" Rory asked. "I don't think so. I'm not that hard to figure out. Anyhow, he really seemed to regret everything, but on the other hand, he was very mad and upset about my last visit to Philly, and I don't blame him really."

"Update me, Jess is not exactly the chattiest person I know."

"I was upset with my previous boyfriend, so I came to the Truncheon open house and I kissed him…"

"Who, the boyfriend?" Cammie asked, confused.

"No, Jess!"

"Oh…"

"Yes! And I wanted to think I only did it to get back at Logan, the boyfriend, and that's what I told Jess, and he got upset, and I left, and now he's with her."

"Okey, who's this 'she' and 'her' that keep popping up in this conversation?" Cammie questioned with a puzzled look.

"Some girl named Jaima." Rory muttered and saw how the puzzled look on Cammie's face disappeared. "Stupid name for a stupid, stupid…"

"Okey, I get it, stupid is the keyword."

* * *

They were quiet for a while, and Rory felt tears beginning to stream down her face. She wasn't the only one to notice.

"Rory? Are you okey?" Cammie asked.

She tried to nod, but the nod wouldn't come out of her.

"I just…" she whispered. "I just wanted him to love me."

"Sweetie, I think he does."

"Why doesn't he tell me so? Why is he with her?"

"Rory. They were dating, barely that, and it was about a month ago.

"Still! They were dating!"

Cammie looked at the girl with the bright blue eyes that had obviously meant so much to Jess.

"Do you know anything about Jess since he came here?"

Rory shook her head.

"He came here, not really knowing what to expect, but soon enough, he hooked up with Matt and Chris, and he started writing that book. It really straightened him out. He could sit by the windows in the coffeeshop for hours, just scribbling down things in a notebook." Cammie told her. "He was a guy running from something when he came here, but he calmed down after a while, and he definitely got a grip of himself and sort of embraced what was haunting him. He left Philly at one time, roaming around the east coast looking for bookstores that would sell his book. He was upset when he came back, and it took him some time to get back to his normal self."

"That must've been when he came to visit me after I had dropped out of Yale." Rory mumbled.

"Whatever it was, I think he sort of decided to try and put you behind. I saw him go through a lot of dates at the coffeeshop. Some lasted only a week, some a month." Cammie continued, and saw how Rory squirmed in her seat. "The thing is, they always ended. I never asked why, he wasn't really keen on talking. But I'm starting to think he couldn't really get past you."

"Didn't seem like that was a problem back at Truncheon."

"Hey. Jaima has been away for some time, and I think Jess figured it was his easy way out, what with you here and his tendency to bolt out of a relationship as soon as he notices the girl wants to get serious. I'd say Jaima didn't know. She didn't know anything about you, about Jess' track record of relationships…"

"That's for sure…"

"Rory, don't be like that. Seriously, you two have got to stop beating around the bush."

"I'm not even going to pretend I heard that. Listen, thanks for the pep talk, but right now I just want to sleep this off. Could I maybe crash here tonight?" Rory asked

"Fine." Cammie conceded. "Just answer this question. Did you leave Truncheon because you love him?"

It was a simple question. Yes or no. Still, Rory found it hard to give Cammie a straight answer. She felt split, like she didn't want to answer right now. She needed her mom, Lorelai always knew what to say, or at least she would say that it was something Rory had to figure out for herself (meaning she could take her time as long as she filled in with the juicy details later). Still, Cammie made quite the good substitute, but that didn't make Rory feel any less cornered. All kinds of images shot through her head. Sookies wedding, the kiss at the petrolpumps, the busride where he most likely headed off to California, the phone call at graduation, all the take offs and returns and…

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes… I love him." she answered.

* * *

On cue, someone started banging away at Cammie's front door.

"Cammie?" came a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

"Did you tell him I was here?" Rory asked.

"Hey, have I had any chance of tipping him off since you ambushed me on my way home?"

Cammie rose from the beanbag and went to the door, opening it slightly.

"Where is she? Is she here?"

"Calm down coffeeboy." Rory could hear Cammie say. "She's here."

"Let me in, I need to talk to her."

"Hey, back off. She's not in a talkative mood, and I wouldn't say you're any better. Just, go home Jess, you'll both sleep on this, and tomorrow we'll deal, okey?"

"Fine. Just… give her this."

Rory figured he must have accepted Cammie's terms, as Cammie returned alone. The question was, did she accept Cammie's terms?

"Don't give me that look, girl." Cammie said when she once again sat down on the beanbag. "You will deal with this thing tomorrow even if I have to drag you to Truncheon. By the way, he gave me your coat, it's hanging on the coatrack beside the door."

With that, it was set. The day continued, with Cammie trying to pretend like nothing had happened. When Rory went to sleep that night on the sofa, she couldn't but feel ridiculous. Going to Philly on a whim had been a disaster so far, what was to keep it from getting worse?


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N**: Sorry for the holdup, I got shanghaied by my parents to help them, so it took until now to finish chapter 7. This is now officially my longest fanfic, so yay for me! Thank you's in hordes for all the reviews, and enjoys this chapter!

**Disclaimer**: I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characthers associated with Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I have no intention of making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it...).

* * *

_7. System flush__, sort of_

"Rory?"

Again, Rory was having a very strange dream. This time it was her and Paul Anka having dinner with Taylor, who had sort of morphed into the grinch. This disturbed her deeply, and she was almost grateful when someone drew her out of the dream.

"What?" she yawned.

"Just thought I'd say I'm heading off to my shift. Stay put, and don't try and bolt."

It took Rory a few seconds before realizing where she was and who was talking to her. She was spread out on Cammie's sofa, and it was Cammie talking to her.

"I'll try my best." she answered, and turned over in the sofa to face Cammie

"Hey, don't sweat it. It's going to be fine."

"How can you know?" Rory asked and sat up.

"I saw it in the two of you. Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't. If I showed up out of the blue at any of my exesm they'd ask me what the hell I'm doing there and then ask me to leave. Rory, there's a reason why Jess didn't send you those letters. Again, you need to stop beating around the bush, and go straight for the bush. Even if it's a stubborn and occasionally monosyllabic one."

"You have much knowledge." Rory mused. "I'm still not sure it's going to help."

"With that attitude, it won't. Just relax. There's a spare key in one of the tincans beside the door. I get off my shift the same time as yesterday. You better be here when I get back, or I will hunt you down."

Rory smiled at her new friend, waving her off as she exited the apartment. She wanted this to be okey, she really did. She just doubted that it would be easy.

* * *

_After Rort left, Jess had been unable to do anything constructive the rest of the day. He hadn't tried to follow her, instead he excused Jaima and told her he'd call her (again, he doubted he would), and then called Cammie. She had sounded surprised, but said she hadn't seen Rory since they left the coffeeshop. He wandered around the bookstore like an uneasy spirit, hovering around customers in a way that made Chris take him aside and talk him into taking the rest of the day off. Normally he would have fought Chris over it, but now he didn't see any meaning in it. Rory was gone, he didn't know where she was or if he would ever see her again. As he entered the apartment he saw her purse, which was at least a little comforting. She always kept her keys in a purse or something like that, right? Without her purse she couldn't get to her car, and she didn't have her coat on. _"God, what if she freezes to death?"_ he suddenly thought. Sure, his sweater was fairly warm, but not nearly warm enough for the chilly weather outside._

_Going into his room, he noticed_ The sun also rises_ lying in his bed. Even though he knew the letters were gone, he browsed through it, finding nothing but the pages of good old Ernest. How the hell had she suddenly changed from reading_ The Heroin Diaries_ to picking out Hemingway, an author she had despised since she had been able to read? Okey, fine if she wanted to read Hemingway, but why had she picked out the one book that she wasn't supposed to look in? Jess felt angry with himself. Why had he not gotten rid of the letters directly after he had sent the Christmas card? Why had he even written them? They were lame and didn't come close to saying what he wanted to say. Anger bubbling inside of him, he threw the Hemingway-book across the room, and sat down on the bed. Where could she have gone? His mind was swirling with pictures of her, huddled up in a dark alley, freezing to death by the Rocky-steps. It wasn't like it was even realistic, but it scared the crap out of him, and made him worry even more about Rory. She was new to this town, she didn't know where to go save for the Truncheon and…_

_"The coffeeshop…" Jess mumbled triumphantly._

_He got up and out of his room, grabbed his own coat and took hers as well. He was about to grab her purse when he hesitated. He could take the purse and the coat and give it to her. He could search the purse for her car keys and bring that and the coat to her. Or he could just take the coat. As much as he considered himself daring and occasinally fearless, he had never mastered the art of snooping around a girls' purse. At least he knew he wasn't a chicken, Matt and Chris had the same problem. Even when their dates would ask them to get something out of the date's purse, they refused, and ended up battling their way out of it with rock, scissors and paper. So, with this in mind, he left the purse where it was and took off._

_Cammie seemed to have gone off her shift, and the guy behind the counter looked lazily up at Jess when he entered._

_"Brett." Jess greeted. "Is Cammie around?"_

_"Dude, you're the second one within an hour to come in here and ask for her. Don't you people learn?" Brett sighed. "She got off about an hour ago."_

_"What do you mean 'second one'?"_

_"A girl, 'bout your age, cute, came in just five minutes after Cammie got off. Rambled on about something, I don't know. I sent her after Cammie, hopefully she found her…"_

_Jess was out of the coffeeshop, and on his way to Cammie's apartment before Brett even noticed. Only problem was that once he got to the apartment, Cammie wouldn't let him in. He asked her to take Rory's coat, and she did. Cammie had promised him that they would deal with it all tomorrow._

Today, he was on edge, more than usual. He wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, and he wanted it all to go away. Matt and Chris had voted against him working at all until him and Rory had talked, so he was walking around the apartment, waiting for the hours to pass by. Just before noon, the boredom became too much, so he took his coat and snuck out.

* * *

Rory was feeling quite the same, just waiting for the moment when Cammie would come through the door. She could've killed, or at least done something semi-illegal, for a cup of Luke's coffee and a danish. Perhaps she could stop by the coffeeshop for a coffee? Cammie would be there and, for what it was worth, she could keep an eye on Rory. She put on her coat, silently thanking Jess for bringing it over yesterday, and found the spare key in one of the three tincans by the door. She took a deep breath before walking out of the apartment.

Outside, it was as cold as ever, and Rory hurried to the coffeeshop.

"Rory?" Cammie asked when she entered. "Is everything okey?"

"Unless I get a coffeefix, it won't." Rory joked.

"I got it. One supercoffee coming up."

Rory smiled, and sat down at one of the window tables, looking around the small coffeeshop, sensing the tempting aroma of the elixir she more or less had been brought up on. Soon after, Cammie came and put down a hot coffee beside her. Out of habit, Rory reached down to take her wallet out of her purse, only to realize her purse, with her keys, wallet and phone in, wasn't there.

"I totally forgot…" she complained to herself and looked up at Cammie. "I… My purse, I left it at Truncheon."

"No worries, girl. Coffee's on the house."

"You and Luke would get along so well."

Cammie laughed. She still didn't know who this Luke-guy was, but she gathered so much that he was someone with coffee, good coffee. She turned around to go back behind the counter, when the door swung open. It was Jess, and he hardly even looked at Cammie before glancing over at Rory. He made a move to approach her, but Cammie stopped him.

"Do you really want to do this now?" she whispered to him.

"The sooner this is over, the better." he answered determinedly, and pushed past Cammie.

* * *

When he bumped down on the chair opposite her, Rory flinched, and as a result, splashed coffee all over herself.

"You really had to do that?" she asked him, as she tried to wipe off as much of the corffee as possible.

"Sorry." he simply said..

She felt both happy and nervous that he was there, mostly nervous, and a bit irritated.

"So… should we talk?" Jess asked her.

"_Why does he have to be so frank?"_ He did not apologize for not telling her about that girl, not anything, just… _"Well, I guess he got the memo about going straight for the bush…"_

"I would prefer not to…" she answered grumpily.

"Oh come on, Rory. Don't go all Bartleby on me now." he retorted.

"You wanted to talk Jess, I don't see you talking."

"Really? So what am I doing now?"

"You're behaving like you're 17 again!" Rory exclaimed. "I don't know if it's any good talking when you're like that, it seems dead given that you will leave in the middle of it anyway."

"Wow, thanks for the confidence, I see someone's not over her teenage years."

"No thanks to you!"

"You know what? Sometimes I think you're really stuck in your teenage years. You seem to think that no matter what I do, I'm still the badass that came to Stars Hollow with trouble as companion. You keep saying you were always hoping for me to do well, talking about how much I'd changed, but still you make the assumption that I will resort to doing something stupid."

"You were the one not telling me…" Rory began.

"You didn't ask!"

"Why didn't you send the letters? And why did you keep them?"

Jess took a deep breath. _"Here it goes…"_

"I didn't send them because none of them were any good. They didn't really say what I wanted them to say."

"I thought they were pretty clear…"

"Well, I was the one writing them, so…"

"Why did you save them?"

"Insert own suggestion here." he smiled. "I honestly haven't got a clue. Yesterday morning I actually thought about throwing them away, but that sort of slipped my mind when I saw your car."

"Where's the first letter?" Rory asked.

"Threw it away on my way home from the unsuccessful attempt of sending it."

"So it's really gone?"

"The odds of that letter turning up are below none."

"And the girl?"

"Jaima?"

Something in Rory squirmed by the sound of her name. She couldn't make herself say anything, but nodded instead.

* * *

"We… We dated in November, and she went on a trip the day before I sent the card. She told me to call her whenever I wanted to and so on."

"Oh..."

"Rory, I never called her. Yesterday was the first time I saw her since November. I don't think I ever inteded on staying with her, I just…"

"What?"

"Nothing… I'd rather not talk about it."

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jess 'Bartleby' Mariano…"

"Don't turn my phrase against me." he said, and shook his head. "Fine. I didn't want to be alone."

"Alone?"

Never in her life had Rory thought Jess would admit to himself being alone. He was always so tough and independent. He had successfully skipped out of her life all by himself, he had single-handedly written a book, he was the guy that liked to keep to himself, and now he didn't want to be alone?

"What? Is that so hard to believe?" Jess asked her.

"I just… You were always kind of a loner."

"Well, things change." he said pointedly.

"Why do I get the feeling I'm one of the things that changed?"

"Why, I don't know. Perhaps because you turned up out of the blue just to because of some stupid vendetta. By the way, why are you here? Has Logan gone off on some gambling trip and you want to get even for that?"

"Jess…"

"No, Rory. That is not fair to me. I get it that you don't expect much of me, because I was always the one to walk out on you, but I never thought you would be the one to pull a full on Jess Mariano."

"Jess!"

Rory had to raise her voice to get his attention. He was really mad at her for the Truncheon-debacle, and she could understand him.

"Logan's out of the picture."

"Really?" he replied sarcastically.

"Really. He's so far out of the picture I can't seem to get my head around the fact that he was ever in it."

"How did it end? Did he skip off with some blonde?"

Rory bit her lip. He would not like this.

"He proposed to me."

"He what?!" Jess exclaimed.

"He proposed. On the graduationparty my grandparents threw for me. He proposed, in front of all my grandparents' friends."

"What, so you're already a divorcee?"

"I turned him down, and he ended our relationship."

"Jerk."

The word left Jess' mouth before he could even reflect on it. She didn't say anything, just smirked.

"Punk ass, rich, gambling, spoiled, bratty playboy." he continued.

"Everything out your system?" Rory asked and arched her eyebrow.

"Piece of no good Porche-driving, liqourdrinking douchebag… Okey, I'm done."

"You feel better?"

He nodded.

"Why did you pick out the Hemingway?" he then asked.

"I thought… You had made it through _The Fountainhead_, and I know how you feel about Ayn Rand, so I figured I'd give the painful Ernest Hemingway a final chance to prove himself. I can't say I got very far."

"Well, it took me five, six years to get through _The Fountainhead_, so I guess I can cut you some slack…"

"Jess?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

He didn't answer her. For once he wasn't going to wave off her apologies with 'No biggie.' This he wanted to hear.

* * *

"I'm sorry for coming to Truncheon last year for all the wrong reasons, I'm sorry for coming here now, for assuming everything could take off where we left it, and for overreacting to the fact that you moved on. You're right, I'm stuck in my teenage years, and I shouldn't have assumed you to still be the person you were then and I'm… I'm just sorry, and now I want to go home and pretend this never happened."

"First of all, yeah, you came to the open house for the wrong reasons, and I had a really hard time getting my head straight after that. As for this, I don't know. We've obviously changed, but that doesn't mean the past has. I still left you, and maybe I'm still the badass, I don't know. You have obviously read my letters, so you know how I feel about you. I just… After you pulled a full on me last year I don't know what to expect from you. You were never supposed to be like me."

"I think that's too late."

"I'm missing something here."

"Did you ever hear the full story behind why I ended up at grandma and grandpa's?"

Jess shook his head.

"Well, I got this internship at one of Logan's dad's papers, and I had the feeling that he offered me the spot to get past his guilty conscience, but I accepted. By the end he told me that I didn't have what it took to be a reporter," Rory told Jess, and she could see how he scoffed at the last part. "So, I got upset, stole a yacht, got busted and sentenced to community service and had a huge fallout with my mom, so yeah, I think the illusion of me not being like you as fallen apart pretty good."

"You stole a yacht? How the hell did you come up with that idea?"

"Well, harbours tend to have boats and one thing lead to another."

"I'm fraternizing with a convicted felon, and it's not even me. Let me savour the moment."

"Very funny."

They sat quiet for a moment, Rory sipping on her coffee, and Jess trying to imagine Rory stealing a yacht and doing community service. It didn't make any sense, she was Rory, the precious little town princess. He could feel how he got all warm inside just thinking about her, and once again his 'bolt out'-alarm set off. He tried to fight it, he was over that era of his life. Still, he felt that he shouldn't push his luck by sitting so close to her. She had always had a strange hold of him and his heart.

"I need to get back to Truncheon." he excused himself.

"Okey."

"You… can stop by later if you want to get your purse."

"That would be good. It's kind of hard to get by without money, I'm practically turning into a charity case."

* * *

They both smiled at each other, feeling that this had been good, they had talked. Rory watched as Jess walked out of the coffeeshop, and turned to look triumphantly at Cammie.

"So, that was good, right?" Rory said.

Cammie came out from behind the counter, full of laughter.

"I can't believe the two of you!"

"What?"

"You thought that was going straight for the bush? You're still beating around it!"

"But… We talked, like really talked!"

"Sure you talked, you had a nice walk down memory lane, and sure, Jess touched on the subject, but you never talked about what's really bugging the two of you."

"I'm not really following…" Rory said, confused.

"Rory. Come on. You talked about everything but the one thing I bet the both of you were thinking about."

"The suspense is killing me, spit it out."

"You both love each other."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **I'm sorry for being slow on the updating, I just had these two ideas of how to write the whole "Rory fetches her purse"-scene, so I spent two sleepless nights trying to decide which one I should go with. I hope you like the idea I decided to go with, if you don't, well… What do I care? :D Thanks again for wonderful reviews, by now you should be fully proficient in using the review-button, so keep them coming!

**Disclaimer: **I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characthers associated with Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I have no intention of making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it...).

* * *

_8. A Farewell to Philly_

"_You both love each other."_

"No."

She didn't really mean to say 'no', but it was the first thing that came out of Rory's mouth.

"I'm sorry? No?" Cammie said and looked suspiciously at her.

The more Rory thought about it, the more she came to realize she didn't even regret saying 'no'.

"No. We don't love each other." she said plainly.

"So, your confession to loving him has been withdrawn, or what, 'cause I'm clearly missing here?"

"No!"

"Wow, new word please."

"I mean, yes, I love him, but…"

She couldn't find the words to explain.

"Are you trying to tell me you don't think he loves you?"

_"Wow, that simple, and I couldn't figure that out..."_ Rory thought as she nodded.

"Oh, come on, you must be blind, or stupid, either of them works for me." Cammie protested. "So he came over to my apartment yesterday, with your coat because..?"

"I bet he needed an excuse."

"Or, because he was worried you'd freeze to death."

"I'd been happier if he had brought my purse, then I could've left."

"Rory…"

Cammie came and sat down opposite her at the table.

"You know who you sound like just know? You sound like the Jess that left you. What's with the 'tude? You should be happy, he obviously likes you!"

"No!"

"And here we go again…" Cammie mumbled.

"You don't know him like I do!" Rory exclaimed.

Cammie could see this was hard for the girl sitting opposite her. Rory and Jess had obviously had a hard time when they were together, and left things unresolved, and this was the consequence.

"Come on."

* * *

Cammie rose from the chair, and began walking towards the counter. Rory couldn't do much but follow her. They went in behind the counter, and into the breakroom. She figured Rory didn't want to have a possible shouting match right in the coffeeshop. They both sat down at a table, and Cammie looked Rory straight in the eyes.

"Rory, you might think you know him better than I do, but from my point of view, I'm the one that knows him better."

"But I know him!" Rory again exclaimed.

"You only seem to know the badboy-Jess that broke your heart. He's not like that anymore."

"But, you said he dated lots of girls and it always ended."

"Not with him skipping town! For what it's worth, he let them down smoothly, always in person, always here, and I don't think any of them were that surprised."

"So he changed his tactics, he's still the same."

"You're not listening. He's not the same!"

"No, he is! He let me down, he broke my heart, and I broke my wrist because of him, and he kept coming back, opening the wounds and I can't trust him with my feelings, and then I hurt him, and he won't trust me…" Rory rambled.

"I see we clearly have some issues here…"

"No! No issues, it's just plain facts. Jess and I, we don't belong, we've gone way past that point. He said it himself last time I was here! 'It is what it is. You. Me.' It's…"

"You know, you're wearing me out with this." Cammie interrupted. "You need to get a grip of yourself and stop judging him, or I'm beginning to believe what Jess said to you about how no matter what he does to prove himself, part of you is always seeing him as the bad boy and judging him for it. He loves you, and I can put whatever I have on the line for that."

Now it was Cammie who had raised her voice, more or less shouting at Rory. _"What was it with these two?"_ she thought. Rory just looked at her, face a bit paler than before, feeling how close she was to crying. She took her coat and began to head out of the room.

"Rory? Where are you going?"

"I think… I think I'd better be leaving."

She didn't listen to Cammie's shouts about coming back and being rational. Now she really just wanted to leave. She had all her things, all she needed to do was to go back to Truncheon, get her purse and hope to God that her car would start so she could go home. She told herself, over and over again, that this had been the stupidest thing she had done, save perhaps for the yacht-stealing, but it came pretty darn close. She went over the pro-con lists she had made about telling Jess she had found the letters, they made no sense now, and why did she even decide on reading Hemingway in the first place?

* * *

She was so immersed in thoughts that she almost passed Truncheon, and when she came in she felt like she wanted to bolt out immediately and hope no one had seen her. Jess was nowhere in sight, Chris stood behind the counter, and she could hear Matt trying to coax someone into doing something.

"Hey!"

It was Chris, he had recognized her. She took a deep breath and went over to the counter.

"Hi." she greeted him. "Have you seen Jess?"

"Sure, he's down in the basement doing inventory." Chris answered and nodded towards a door in the back. "Tell him he can't hide there all day."

"Duely noted…"

Rory felt nervous when she decended the stair down to the basement. Talking to Jess had never really been a problem until… well, until the open house. Something had gone wrong that day, and now she began to feel like it reall had been her fault.

"Jess?" she called out.

"Over here!" he answered from somewhere.

"Marco!"

"I'm not gonna say 'Polo'."

"Ernest!" she tried instead.

"Hemingway!" came the answer from behind a row of shelves. "I like that better."

She smiled. At least there was the occasional humour left.

"Hey." she said when she finally found the right row of shelves.

"Hey."

Awkward silence, she hated it, and now she was stuck in it.

"Chris told me to tell you that you can't hide here all day."

Jess nodded, knowing Chris was right, he had been hiding.

"I take it you want your purse back." he continued matter-of-factly.

She nodded, didn't dare to say anything, fearing it would be something she'd regret. They walked in silence up from the basement, through the store and up the stairs to the apartment. Jess could feel the tension between them, she was uncomfortable. As soon as they were inside the apartment, he went into his room, leaving her behind. When he came back from the coffeeshop he had moved the purse into his room, wanting something of her there with him, even though it wasn't for long. He had secretly hoped she would've stayed longer, so he would have had a chance to do something about the situation. He sighed, picked up the purse and went back to Rory. She had taken off her coat, and was now pulling his sweater off. He caught a glimpse of her stomach, the pale white skin that once had been so close to him.

"Your purse." he said, trying not to look to much at her.

"Thank you." she smiled. "And thanks for borrowing me the sweater."

Jess felt like they were exchanging something far more important than a sweater and purse when the items changed hands, and he knew would never use that sweater again. She looked at him briefly, before pulling on her coat again, hanging the purse over her shoulder.

"Okey… Well, I think I should be heading back…" she said, adding something about 'Christmas', 'Friday night dinner' and 'mom' in a mumbling voice.

He nodded, and she turned around to leave.

"Take care of yourself, Rory." he added, just as she opened the door.

"I love you."

* * *

"_What?"_ she thought to herself, horrified. The words had left her mouth before she had had time to react. Her right hand flew up to her mouth, and she could see he was stunned by her utterance. What then happened was like a bad rerun, or a very bad rip off. They looked blankly at each other, before she again turned around and hurried down the stairs. She bolted out the bookstore, unlocked her car, and started up the engine. What had she done? It wasn't until she hit the outskirts of Philadelphia, and stopped for something to eat that it hit her, full on, what she had really done. She had done what he had done at the Firelight Festival. Rory felt she would have loved a strategically placed brick wall to drive her head through, or at least a little mean voice that said _"I told you so."_ None of that, however, was available, even though there was a mean voice, but it said _"Look what you did."_ She rushed down her bagle and coffee, and continued driving. After a while, she half expected her phone to start ringing. That sparked a silent debate between herself and the mean little voice about why anyone, and she knew she was thinking of Jess, would call her. She was still debating herself when she came home, and saw Lorelai's Jeep. She let her head fall down onto the steering wheel. She hadn't bought _The Heroin Diaries_, and it was probably too late to place an order at Andrew's.

When she came in, she could hear her mom jumping out of the couch, and seconds later Lorelai was all over her, hugging her, closely followed by Paul Anka jumping up and down, barking. Coming home had never felt so good.

"Mom? What are you doing home?"

"Someone, I shall not name anyone, but he's French, forgot to call the snowplougher, so the Inn's snowed in, haven't yet decided if the pun's intended or not, but anyway, I've been home all day."

"Has anyone called for me?" Rory asked cautiously.

"Besides mrs Stalin that has been pestering me for the past week or so? Actually, yes.

"What did they want?"

"I don't know, I haven't answered the phone, because I don't want to talk to the ghost of Friday night dinner, so it's all gone to voicemail. Of course, I've listened through them all, especially the one for you, but I didn't get much of the meaning, which means I'm waiting for you to give me the juicy details."

Rory scowled at her and walked over to the answering machine. First, there were five or so messages from her grandma, reminding Lorelai and Rory about the Friday night Christmasdinner and then lecturing Lorelai about the voicemail greeting. Sookie had also left a message, but the far most interesting message came last.

"_Hey Rory, if this is getting to the right person. It's Chris… and Matt, from Truncheon. What the hell did you do to Jess before you left? He's barricaded himself in his room, again, and I mean really barricaded, as in really putting something infront of the door to prevent anyone from entering…"_ began the message.

"So hon, Philadelphia hate you much?" Lorelai asked innocently.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N**: Oh yeah, chapter 9! Thank you for the lovely reviews, even though I think I'm making an ass of a story here, you seem to think otherwise, and that is a very encouraging thought! If any Americans read this, I sort of had to improvise the cell numbers, tried googling, but that didn't render much result, so if I have screwed up how you guys do your cell numbers please point it out and tell me how it should be! Brownie points for those who can figure out from what movie I snatched the chapter-title. As always: review, review, review, or I might hold out on the final _gasp_ chapter! ;)

**Disclaimer**: I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characters associated with Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I have no intention of making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it...).

* * *

_9. Mishap, mayhem, oh J…_

Rory felt like she was stuck in some insane Dr. Seuss – world. She had just come home from what she was sure was the most disastrous impromptu visit ever, her mom was pestering her to spill all the juicy details, all while Matt's and Chris' message kept repeating itself:

"_Hey Rory, if this is getting to the right person. It's Chris… and Matt, from Truncheon. What the hell did you do to Jess before you left? He's barricaded himself in his room, again, and I mean really barricaded, as in really putting something __in front of the door to prevent anyone from entering…Also Cammie seems pissed at you, she went total Mr. Hyde on us when we came for coffee, and managed to crown you and Jess king and queen of Stupidia or something like that… Anyway, call us and tell us how to pull a Prison Break on Mariano, the cranky loner- thing he's been doing doesn't suit him anymore. Either call us at Truncheon or at our cells, it's 215-555…"_

For now, she stopped listening the instant they gave their cell numbers (even though she had heard the numbers so many times now that they were etched into her memory), and sunk down in the couch, her mom beside her. This had turned out worse than she could ever have imagined, and now Jess had gone full out on his hermit-tendency, Cammie was upset, Chris and Matt begged for her to help out and her mother wouldn't stop looking at her.

"Come on, honey, tell me, what happened, I want to know everything, from the sweet beginning, right through the mundane middle and off to the bitter end!"

"Mom, you know the end already, I came home, Jess barricaded himself, and the Philly-version of Luke is upset with me."

"No! You seriously pissed of the Luke of Philly? Was he wearing a cap?"

"It was a she, and she had purple hair and played for the 'girls only team', and she actually wanted me to join."

"Dirty!" Lorelai gasped.

"Not funny!" retorted Rory. "You know, I don't want to talk about it, not now, possibly not ever, so could you please just let it slide and go back to searching for Pop Tart-notes?"

She wanted out of this surreal situation, and this turned out to be her opportune moment. Lorelai seemed very surprised at her daughter's outburst, and just looked at her, so Rory took the chance and got up from the sofa, and stormed out of the house.

* * *

She loved Stars Hollow in the winter, or at least she used to. Everything was covered in snow, and usually it looked very magical to Rory, but today was different. Everything annoyed her, the light was too bright, and it was freezing, no one was outside for her to talk to, even though she doubted she wanted to talk to anyone, and she was drifting through town until she came to the old bridge. Walking it during winter was even more hazardous than during summer, and she carefully trod out to the middle and just stood there, watching the frozen water. Here, they had bickered about Hemingway and Rand while not eating the contents of the basket. Luke had pushed him in here. This used to be her reading spot when she was younger. All her thoughts kept touching on Jess, no matter how hard she tried to avoid it. He had locked himself in, why would he do that? Not even Luke, Mr. Grumpy himself, would do that. She needed to know what was going on, what if he was committing suicide just now? That thought horrified Rory, and she took out her cell phone and quickly dialled one of the cell numbers.

"Hello?" answered a voice she recognized as Chris'.

"Is he alive?" she blurted out.

"Excuse me? Is who alive? If we're talking about Keith Richards, I'm afraid you're too late."

"What? Keith Richards is alive and kicking, when he's not climbing palm trees!"

"For real?"

Chris sounded surprised.

"Wow, that was major. Hey Matt! Keith Richard is alive!"

Rory could hear a major debate ensue between Chris and Matt on whether Keith Richards was alive or not.

"Chris?" she tried.

"What? Hey, who am I talking to?"

"It's Rory."

"God, finally you call us back. Hey Matt, it's her!"

"Is he alive?" Rory repeated her first question. "Is Jess alive?"

"Sure he's alive, he's just barricaded, and it's a bit scary, actually. We've been trying to listen in on him, you know, to see that he's alive and all that, but the only thing we hear is tapping, as in writing on a machine or computer, not tap dancing."

"Because Jess and tap dancing seems like a match made in heaven."

"I wouldn't know, but seriously, what happened? He seemed fine when I saw the two of you walk up to the apartment."

She didn't want to explain, didn't want to remember.

"What's the deal with Cammie?" she asked instead, dodging his question.

"Smooth hey, you're not getting off the hook."

"_Shoot…"_ she thought, before replying. "Fine. My brain went haywire and I told him I loved him."

"And that warranted him making his own SHU how?"

"First of all, you need to cut down on Prison Break. Second, I bolted out just after I said that, and third, he did the same thing to me four years ago."

After what seemed like the longest silence in the history of silences, Chris replied:

"Man, you two have issues."

"No! We don't have issues."

"Listen to uncle Chris here. You have issues, as in you and Mariano. I don't know you, but Jess wasn't even this cranky when he got to Philly. You need to get your butt back here and fix this with him."

"That ship has already sailed, and it sailed long before I came to Philly the first time." Rory sighed.

"Are you sure?" Chris asked.

"I don't want to be, but… I'm afraid so."

"I'm starting to see why Cammie was so frustrated…"

"What's with her by the way? Fine, I might have left in the middle of something, but…"

"Only thing I know is that she was raving on about you and Jess being the thickest lovebirds on this side of the galaxy, plus the king and queen stuff. You need to fix her, too, I don't think I can stand decaf anymore."

"Chris… I can't come. I don't know if I want to come. Every time Jess and I are together we screw up, and I don't want to screw up for him. He's a good person, an amazing writer, everything I would want from a guy, but all we do is hurt each other, and this time it seems I'm in the run for 'heartbreaker of the year', so…"

"I don't understand, Rory. You like him, he likes you enough to pitch a fit because you did what he did to you way back, and you are certain there is nothing that could be done?"

"I…" Rory faltered. "I'm afraid to look. I fear that if I look too closely, hoping to find something, anything, I will just realize that there is nothing to be done, and he'll move on, and I'll be stuck with a heart bleeding all over the pavement, and Taylor will kick my butt for it, and mom will want me to wallow, and it will become everybody's business and…"

"Ignoring the fact that you managed to get another guy in this to kick your butt, what do all those other people have to do with this?" Chris asked

"Everything, and nothing." she answered, and felt tears burning down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, I have to go."

She ended the call, quietly walking home to face her mom firing questions at her. "So much for Christmas spirit…" Rory thought gloomily as she opened the door to her home.

* * *

In Philly, Jess was tapping angrily at his computer. He needed to vent, and locking himself into his room seemed like a good idea at the moment. He had locked the door, but pushed his desk in front of the door just in case Matt would remember that he was the best amateur lock pick on this side of the Atlantic. After having plugged in his laptop, he opened a new document and fired away. He didn't bother looking at what he wrote, he let his soul pour out through his fingers and the keyboard onto the document. He heard Matt and Chris yelling at him to come out, threatening him with various things, before disappearing out the door. A while later, they returned, Chris seeming to leave someone a message, and then it was on again. There were bangs on the door, threats in verbal and written form, pleas and shouting, but nothing could make him snap out of the trance-like state he was in. His fingers kept on hitting the keyboard, he saw words form, and he couldn't stop. She had… He couldn't put his finger on what she had done, but it was something, and it hurt. He finally understood his own foolish act of dropping a bomb like that and then leave. The worst thing was, his mind was spinning to know if she really meant it, and not knowing it for certain made him go crazy.

He sat there for hours, his fingers weary of writing, but still continuing, until he heard someone's phone ring. As if it had been a spell, his fingers stopped moving, his head came out of the Rory-rollercoaster, and he listened absent-mindedly while trying to understand any of the thirty-or-so pages he had written. He heard Chris and Matt bicker about Keith Richards, they talked about Cammie, and then came another bomb:

"_I don't understand, Rory. You like him, he likes you enough to pitch a fit because you did what he did to you way back, and you are certain there is nothing that could be done?"_

His heart nearly stopped. Chris was talking to Rory. Just by that simple utterance, Jess understood. She was upset, confused, and he wasn't there, or she wasn't here, and both feared that now they would go on with this hanging over them. She was afraid there was no way back, and to tell the truth, he had no bright ideas on the subject either. He wanted, like she wanted, to go back, retrace each step, each mishap, each shard of broken heart, but the problem was how. He wanted… He wanted…

Sleepiness fell over him like a warm blanket, and he fell asleep over his desk. In his dreams he saw her. They were standing on either side of the old bridge. He wanted to move, but didn't dare to. She seemed to want to move also, but wouldn't. She gave him one last piercing look with her ever-so-blue eyes, before turning around and walking away from him. He snapped out of the dream, and almost fell off his chair. It was three in the morning, and he knew he needed to do something about this. He just needed a plan.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N**: Wow, final chapter! I'm quite amazed that I've managed to keep up a story for ten chapters! Thank you again for the reviews on the previous chapter, and I hope you like this, my last chapter for "Post Scriptum". I'll try and get to working on a sequel for "I think I may have loved you", and maybe (but just maybe) I'll get conked in the head by inspiration and write a sequel for "Everything's gonna be okey" on a whim! Heaps of thanks to Pchefbeth, who gave me a good hint to when Jess' birthday may be!

**Disclaimer**: I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characthers associated with Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I have no intention of making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it...).

* * *

_10. Joy to the Crap Shack_

There had never been a Christmas quite like this in all of Rory's life. Since she came home she had been feeling uneasy and troubled. She was worrying about Jess, but didn't dare to call Chris or Matt to ask if he was ok. They hadn't called her either. Now it had been a week since she had bolted out of Truncheon, it was Christmas and her Christmas spirit was nowhere to be found. She could tell her mother was worried. At Friday night Christmas dinner she had been absent-minded, and Lorelai had been forced to try and carry on the conversation so that Emily and Richard wouldn't start ambushing Rory with questions, thus making the whole dinner party turn their attention to Rory.

Lorelai had tried to make Rory wallow, but just like when she and Dean had broken up, she refused profoundly. She would be gone when Lorelai woke up in the mornings, and then be gone all day. No one in town seemed to have seen her, but she always turned up in the evening, looking cold, and going into her room without saying much. Lorelai knew her daughter was pining and most likely blaming herself for whatever had happened in Philadelphia. For the first time since… Lorelai didn't even remember how long it had been since she had felt this helpless.

"Rory?" Lorelai said, knocking on Rory's door. "Honey?"

A muffled "What?" came from inside the room.

"Don't you wanna come out? There's a Christmas hooplah waiting for you in the living room. Sookie made muffintops and I got Luke to make us Santa burgers and they're waiting for you."

There was a long silence, and Lorelai felt like she wanted to kick down the door.

"Fine. Just give me a second."

"One…" Lorelai counted jokingly.

"Not fun, mom."

"Oh come on, a little fun? A fragment of fun? A Luke-kind of little fun?"

"I'll be out in a minute, mom. Go guard the burgers."

* * *

When Rory came out of her room, and entered the livingroom she felt misplaced. Everything was so happy and cheery. Her mom had fixed the Christmas tree, put all the presents under it, and their socks hung from the banister, and beside the fireplace was a half-empty bowl of gum and the mantlepiece was adorned with her and her mothers' cranberry-popcorn garlands. Her mom looked happy, Paul Anka looked happy, but she… She felt all but happy. She was miserable, and she kept thinking of Jess, who was more or less the Grinch in a leather jacket. Sitting down in the couch with a fake smile on her lips, Rory felt relieved that she at least had finished her present shopping before Philadelphia, otherwise the recipients would have thought she had pulled an Uncle Scrooge before the various ghosts on them.

On the coffee table in front of them was a basket of Sookie's muffintops (who had the faintest smell of someone who had taken a bribe), a plate laden with Pop tarts of virtually every flavor there was, as well as two of the most disgusting-looking Santa burgers Rory had ever seen. She knew Luke had made one for her mother a couple of years back, and she was fairly certain Luke had protested wildly when Lorelai had requested them again this year, and to top it off she had wanted two. _"Poor Luke's upchuck reflexes…"_ Rory thought to herself.

"Come on, kiddo! Dig in, and I'll load the video!"

"What? We don't watch movies on Christmas Eve."

"New traditions, you can protest if you want, but it's already too late!"

"Let the record show: Whatever." Rory noted in a sarcastic tone.

"Rory." her mother said and turned around. "I don't know what got you in this funk, since you don't want to tell me. You've been moody and absent-minded all week, and you disappear in the morning and no one sees you until you come home in the evening. You know I love you, honey, but isn't time you either let go, or tell me, the very reason for your existence, what's bugging you?"

She wanted to tell her mom, she really did. Her mom was her best friend, and they had always been able to talk about everything. Still, Rory felt that this wasn't anything she wanted to share with her mom, not all the details. On the other hand, it would be nice to get some of it out, it was starting to consume her from the inside. All week she had been sitting down by the bridge, drawing meaningless pictures in the snow with her hands and feet, wondering about Jess, thinking about him, reminiscing about him. She was angry with herself, for blowing it all. She knew so little about him, and it irritated her that she got to hear about his life in Philly from Cammie and not from him. She didn't even know his birthday, because they had never celebrated it. He was just like before, just the same, and still so different. Perhaps she was the one that had changed? In what universe would she be the one to pull a full on Jess Mariano, complete with the three little words and the turn-and-run act? Perhaps they had both changed into each other? He had become like her, responsible, sensible, and she had turned into him, reckless and badass. Perhaps..?

"Honey? Please talk to me…"

Rory looked up at Lorelai, her mom really wanted her to talk.

"I screwed up" she blurted out.

"How?" Lorelai asked.

"Well, for one thing, I went to Philadelphia, in the middle of the night, and he was there, and she, and the other she, and then there were letters, he said he had thrown them away, and I slept on a couch and then I told him I loved him and ran away!"

Lorelai looked taken aback by this sudden flood of confessions.

"Okey… I take it that was a quick recap. Would you mind elaborating so mommy can understand something?"

Rory took a deep breath. _"Screw the holding back now…"_ she thought, and began:

"I went to Philadelphia, and Jess was there."

"That much I know."

"We went for coffee to this coffeeshop where a girl named Cammie worked, and she was really nice. Anyway, I asked him about the Christmas card, and he said he had wanted to write to me, and that he had written four other letters but never sent them, but thrown them all away. Later, I found three of them, he had kept them, and I read them, and they were wonderful, so I thought I'd talk to him about them, but then I found out that he more or less had a new girl, so I ran away."

"What?! Jess has a new girlfriend?"

"They just dated, but she seemed to really like him, and that hurt, so I took off, and spent the night at Cammies', and I forgot to take my purse and my coat, and he came over with my coat that evening. Next day, we talked over coffee, and it was really good coffee…"

"We're not talking Luke-kind-of-good, are we?"

"Close." Rory answered."

"Thank God, something is still right in the world. Go on."

"He asked if I wanted my purse back, and since I had my car keys there, you bet that I wanted, so we headed back to Truncheon, and I got my purse, and then my head went blank and I told him I loved him and then bolted out and drove home."

"Oh... Now I totally get that answering message for you. And I understand why you've been acting all grumpypuss all week. You owe me for that Friday nightmare dinner, by the way."

"Mom! Not helping!"

Lorelai smiled.

"Sweetie. We're talking about Jess here. The guy who pulled so many heartbreak-and-run on you that he practically has the record. You feel bad because you did to him what he did to you. You're a good kid, Rory, beyond good, and for you to do something like this, it makes you feel bad, but you shouldn't. Jess…"

"Jess is not the same."

* * *

"_Did I just say that?"_ For months, if not years, she had maintained the thought that Jess would always be the town hoodlum, always up to something, but… He wasn't. Not really.

"He has changed, and he changed for me. He wrote a book, I haven't written a book, and it's a good book, far better than any of my newspaper pieces." she tried to explain to her mother.

He had tried to move on, both of them had, but both of them were stuck in their old tracks, the ones they used to share. She still doubted that he loved her, after the stunt she pulled on him, but she loved him, and perhaps that was the real reason she had turned down Logan, the reason to why she had taken a job that would have her traveling around the country, because maybe they would bump into each other.

"You love him don't you, kid?" Lorelai smiled at her.

Rory could only nod.

"After all these years, huh?"

New nod.

"No wonder you've been super-crabby then."

"Hey, I thought I was just grumpypuss!"

"Sorry, I just upgraded you to super-crabby."

At that moment, the doorbell rang.

"It's open!" Lorelai shouted.

Whoever was at the door didn't enter, but kept on ringing the bell.

"It's..! Honey, would you mind..?" Lorelai continued and nodded towards the door.

Rory got out of the sofa and walked over to open the door. Her mouth fell open when she saw who was outside.

"Jess?" she whispered.

* * *

He looked cold, almost as cold as she had looked in Philly. She looked over her shoulder, her mom was busy trying to get the tape to work, so she stepped outside, quietly closing the door.

"I didn't hear you come."

He was wearing his old leather jacket, but it didn't seem to provide much warmth for him, as he was shivering.

"You cold?"

No reaction, he just looked at her.

"Jess, what are you doing here?" she asked.

Still no reaction.

"Does Luke know you're here?"

Slowly, he shook his head.

"Then why..?"

She never got to finish that sentence. He lounged at her, took her in his arms and kissed her, his lips icy cold against her. She knew she should've pushed him away. She knew she should've questioned his methods, and lectured him about trying to fix the problems without actually confronting them. She knew she shouldn't be kissing him, but nevertheless it felt heavenly. He filled her with something, and whatever it was, it made her feel like she was floating.

* * *

Jess had no idea how he was going to explain himself when the moment was over. He had prepared a speech, a long explaination as to why he was there and what he wanted, but when he saw her all his words scattered. The only thing left was this urge to hold her, to caress her and kiss her, so he did. He had parked his car in town, and walked to the Crap Shack, all prepared. When he saw the front porch he stopped. Suddenly he was nervous, and he went over his speech again and again. Slowly, he came closer to the front door, but didn't dare to ring the bell. He didn't know how long he had just stood there, but apparantly long enough for his face and hands to turn numb.

He let his hands travel up to her neck, almost feeling her pulse through the soft skin. She shuddered at this touch, but he wanted more, more heat, more Rory. His hands entangled themselves in her hair, and he pulled her closer. It was perfect, this moment was perfect, but what would happen when they broke off the kiss? He wanted it to go on forever, but soon even he felt the need for air, and he ended the kiss. Taking a deep breath, Jess looked at Rory. She was flushed, cheeks heating, herself now shuddering.

"Merry Christmas." he said.

She didn't move, just looked at him with her piercing baby blues. Often, it had been him that had made her uncomfortable with a look, but this time, he was the one squirming under her gaze.

"I… I just wanted to… I don't know." he tried. "I had this whole speech planned out, and it all went away when you opened, and I can claim temporary insanity about the kiss if that makes you feel better. And don't worry about Jaima, I finally called her, and said I couldn't date her, and she understood, and I talked to Cammie, and she has calmed down and dethroned me at least, you're still queen as far as I know, but anyway…"

He could see a small smile playing on her face.

"Should I take it you're happy to see me, or that you're having some strange reaction to me? Should I go?"

"No! Don't go." she said.

She threw herself into his arms, hugging him tight.

"Don't leave me."

"Okey…" he whispered to her, holding her in a soft embrace.

"When's your birthday?" she suddenly asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"Your birthday. We never celebrated it."

"Why's that important?"

"I realized I know so little about you." she explained. "Come on, Jess, spit it out."

He smiled at her. She was gonna find this funny.

"July 21st." he answered. "Same day as Hemingway."

"Really?" she asked, looking suspiciously.

"Ask my mom if you don't believe me."

"No wonder you have this weird obsession with Hemingway…"

"Hey, it's not an obsession, and I could say the same about you and Rand!"

"You are mean, and you look cold. Come on in, and give my mom a heart attack to go with her Santa-burger."

* * *

They entered, and caught a glimpse of Lorelai zooming around the livingroom talking to someone, by the sound of it Luke.

"Oh come on, you totally cheated on the Santa-burger, this one actually tasted like crap. Get your butt over here, celebrate Christmas with us and bring lots of fries!"

With that she ended the call, throwing the phone on the sofa.

"Honey, was that you?" Lorelai asked.

"Yeah, it was me. And we've got company."

"No way Luke is that fast. And if it's Santa tell him that it took him long enough to understand that the front door works better than the chimney."

"It's not Luke." Jess answered. "And it sure as hell ain't Santa."

He could hear Lorelai stopping, and seconds later she was standing in front of them.

"Philly don't do Christmas?" she asked.

"Mom…" Rory said warningly.

"Do I wanna know what you're doing here?" Lorelai continued.

"Mom! Please!"

"I didn't find celebrating Christmas alone that hot, and I had something I wanted to talk to Rory about." Jess explained.

"Like what?" Lorelai demanded, looking sternly at him.

Jess answered by taking Rory's hand. Rory felt how a tingling sensation seemed to emanate from his hand, and she smiled.

Lorelai's face seemed to soften at this sight. Her daughter was happy, and that was reason enough for herself to be happy, even if the source of happiness was Jess Mariano. She nodded at them to come in, and went back to the livingroom, picking up the phone to call Luke.

"Yeah, hi. You're coming right? Okey, bring a plethora of fries, Jess just arrived." she said, before hanging up on a very surprised Luke.

She turned to Rory and Jess.

"And all is well in the world, joy to the Crap Shack and on earth peace and good coffee to all men."

Jess sniggered, he never really figured out how the Gilmore girls' head were working.

"And P.S," Rory whispered to him. "I love you, Dodger."

"Love you too, Dominique."

"Dominique? Oh, I forgot you had read _The Fountainhead_." she smiled.

"You know what that means."

"I will pretend I don't."

"Merry Christmas, Rory." he said, pulling a parcel out of his jacket.

"Do I even have to ask what it is?" she said, while tearing off the wrapping paper.

* * *

She had already guessed it, and her guesses were confirmed when the paper came off and revealed _The sun also rises_. She opened the book to find a written dedication in it:

_To Rory.  
__Happy 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd birthday!  
__Happy thanksgiving, Merry Christmas,  
__and congratulations for everything I've missed.  
__Much love,_

_Dodger._

She smiled at him, kissing him softly on the lips. Just then, Luke came in through the door, and upon seeing the young couple kissing, he let out a loud "Jeez!" and disappeared out again. Everything was in deed well, and Rory felt happier than ever before. She had Jess, and that was all she would ever need.


End file.
